I attach an other picture. I hope it shows what are the size differences between a human and a mech. Personally, I am pretty satisfied with them but I really interested, what are the fellow reapers' opinions on that.

I like this idea very much! (Well, to damage other pilots, even if unauthorized, would be a bit contraproductive in a co-op game, but simply the mech not working for them would do.)
Will a reaper have the opportunity to give her/his mech to friends / clan members / team members? (E.g. in a middle of a battle one of my fellows lose her/his mech, can I call down my secondary for her/him?)

Veteran

Hi All! Hi @Watson!
I attach an other picture. I hope it shows what are the size differences between a human and a mech. Personally, I am pretty satisfied with them but I really interested, what are the fellow reapers' opinions on that.

thank you for the clear size comparison! I still think the frames are a bit too large, especially compared to the original concept art for the MK.I frame. But the final decision comes down to the devs, of course.

Firstclaimer

ah, the difference a slight change in camera angle can make! I'm sorry for that, you see, i don't actually have the art demo so I couldn't ascertain what that really was.
However, my point still stands that maybe with a very little bit of downscaling the pilot could look like they fit in their cockpit a bit better.

Base Commander

Just me posting my feedback on the art build. Some various things that are just personal opinion on how it looks, and also some actual parts that could probably use to be fixed or improved on.

1. The glowing parts on the suit need something to look less flat and bland. Glowing means they dont have lighting and other stuff showing in them properly, so it just looks like a flat shape. Too uninteresting as it is right now. It also doesn't fit in with the suit well enough. Adding some type of a border/edge to the glowing area with a small raise/lowering of the normal map there would help it feel like a different part of the suit attached/sewn into it, rather than just a random glowy spot that suddenly pops up like spilled glow stick goo.
For the inside of the glowing areas, having a slight pattern (edges between hexagonal shapes or whatever probably, so thin lines that leave the majority of it glowing) where that part doesn't glow itself, or at least not nearly as much, so that you can see lighting and form stand out by looking at a slight webbing or structured pattern in it would also help it be more visually interesting and less flat, while helping to keep the 3 dimensional shape conveyed despite it being viewed in 2d. The loss of that shading on a giant area like this is really standing out at the moment.

2. Females feet are twisted, starting at the ankles you go down and they got some weird bends. Not sure if this is from the initial mesh, or Ikinema doing stuff on the skeleton in an unwanted way, though with the ankles upper twist it'd probably have to be mesh or badly located bone pivots to produce that result seen on the right ankle (left side of this pic).

Males feet also have the issue in general, but not the upper ankle twist part at least.

3. Jumping animations, these are a hoot in general with that sudden pose, but that's something that'll probably be polished and worked on in the future with animations and such, key issue I noticed for the current term is the way the bones are setup with the shoulders. Its like the shoulder joint is actually down into the arm a couple inches, and the shoulder blades bone itself was, rather than near the spine, placed where the shoulders bone normally should be. The result was during some animations, but especially jumping, the females arms would do an impression of Gumbi. It was hard to get a good picture with the motion blur in play, but here's some examples of that area, of the mesh, and why I think the skeleton and skinning should be looked at there in most detail.

Also noticed a slightly odd curve in the forearm goign to the wrist area that looks a bit odd on the female how it jerks down rather sharply, before up and then down for the ball/edge of the hand. That extra down bulge makes me wonder if its another skinning issue or what.

4. The males suit seems to dark, especially the back. I think part of it is that the octal pattern wasn't used on its texture and normal map all over like it was on the females, that is overall brighter and more visible. As it is right now, I feel like the male suit is overall more like wierd oily stretched rubber, rather than a cool looking suit. It could use more small details, a pattern, or to be more visually clear and less dark and glossy. Even if the main muscles are left with the darker glossy pattern, having the hexagonal pattern or such over the flatter areas or some parts at least would help it stand out more, right now you got that tiny border area sort of batwing T shaped on the males back, but its just too small to balance out the rest of the backs darkness, while on the female, the constant highlights all over from the lighting hitting the hexagonal patterns normals lets it be overall dark but also have the lightness needed to see the shape and to appear more interesting and structure to the viewer.

5. Males hands, this is just my opnion but I've had it for quite awhile. The males hands are too damn big, it's like the medic from TF2 with his giant thick gloves, but outside of that over proportioned and comedic art style it just looks odd. Especially when done in what otherwise is trying to look like a more photo realistic approach.

6. The ferrofluid sometimes leave bald spots. Probably one of the quicker done things for the demo, but in case it was thought of as being good, might want to look at these parts again before the kickstarter. Range of movement on specific patches could use some tweaking.

7. A small issue, barley worth mentioning on the THMPR, but noticed a bit of its texture that looked odd, might be the UV mapping wasn't done properly on those polygons making up the edge part on its foots covering plate. In this picture, on the left, just to the left of the crosshair, you'll notice that yellow line runs diagonally down that polygon in a way that doesn't match how its painted on any other part of the mech, or hows its doen on the opposite side of the foot. This pic is taken of the THMPRs right foot, and the problem looked at is on the right front side of that foot. Not even visible on the left foot since the front part is covering it in the standing animation on its left left side.

8. The omniframes crotch guard piece has some issues with its normals/smoothing groups. Where it was split with symmetry, the aren't matching up and doing that annoying one sides super light and the other dark issue. Double check the meshes in that area for possible issues in its form, or how its being imported/exported. In 3dsmax I get this sometimes when I export something in the Edit Poly type, rather than changing it to Edit Mesh first. Also sometimes an issue with import and compute normals option when importing into the engine. And much more rare, but the normals texture might actually be the cause of it there. Either way, heads up.

Non art things.

1. A free cam mode, helps a lop to look at the characters if there's a button you can press and hold or toggle to keep the character from spinning around, also is often pretty easy and fast to add in unreal.

2. Controller support on basic axis mappings. Was surprised they weren't actually plugged in. (or my controllers just being ignored for some reason).

3. The ability to hit tab once to go between username and password on the login menu. I have to hit it twice, not sure where my selection is going on the first tab hit. As someone who always uses tab to change field when logging into games or stuff, this one irks me a surprisingly large amount now that its not smooth feeling for once....

4. Not having a fatal crash with peerblock or something blocking the connection, but to just say "hey, connections blocked" or some such.

------------- End Comments --------------

I'm curious on what other peoples thoughts were on some of the stuff, like the arms proportions or the glowing patches on the suits possibly looking to flat.

Also, anyone else think that everything might be a little too... dark? Players, player suits, omniframe, THMPR, enemies, almost everything seems to use dark blacks, often with reflective surfaces that make it stand out even more, and it feels like stuff could use some more visual variation. More non shiny paints, more low gloss plastic parts, some leather or such stuff (the tier 1 kaiju was the only non black glossy dominated thing, THMPR being partial exception as its dark blue instead).
Some of this can be dealt with by having customizable colors on omniframes and such, but it still seems like it's something to take not of at this earlier point in the games development if they want it to all be dark and glossy, or perhaps have a greater variety of things or to figure out a more specific visual language of sorts to convey certain factions, devices, or such.

Kaiju Slayer

I attach an other picture. I hope it shows what are the size differences between a human and a mech. Personally, I am pretty satisfied with them but I really interested, what are the fellow reapers' opinions on that.

I like this idea very much! (Well, to damage other pilots, even if unauthorized, would be a bit contraproductive in a co-op game, but simply the mech not working for them would do.)
Will a reaper have the opportunity to give her/his mech to friends / clan members / team members? (E.g. in a middle of a battle one of my fellows lose her/his mech, can I call down my secondary for her/him?)

Guess i was abit too cautious with the mech security that would be a good idea
to just have it locked down mode and not work for the thief What if this person was a hacker
i mean even a shifter approached it while you were out of it if you dont stop the shifter will take over your mech temporarily given enough time and if the shifter is eliminated the mech goes into a reboot phase so that you have full control again.

perhaps there is a permission area you can give clan and friends access to the mech and others will appear a tab to accept permantely or for one time use hmm

Kaiju Slayer

Also, anyone else think that everything might be a little too... dark? Players, player suits, omniframe, THMPR, enemies, almost everything seems to use dark blacks, often with reflective surfaces that make it stand out even more, and it feels like stuff could use some more visual variation. More non shiny paints, more low gloss plastic parts, some leather or such stuff (the tier 1 kaiju was the only non black glossy dominated thing, THMPR being partial exception as its dark blue instead).
Some of this can be dealt with by having customizable colors on omniframes and such, but it still seems like it's something to take not of at this earlier point in the games development if they want it to all be dark and glossy, or perhaps have a greater variety of things or to figure out a more specific visual language of sorts to convey certain factions, devices, or such.

That is a good point i'd like to see customizable colors on the frames i am sure some like the dark theme i'd hope the glowy parts would be better at glowing with setting of how much it would glow or even slow pulsing too etc

Firstclaimer

So much awesomeness, cant wait so see the characters with proper animations!
Great work guys

(I'm so incredibly sorry, but someone was bound to make a mod for this at some point anyways... so why dont we just get it over with already. Gotta polish it up a bit and remove the chroma from the skin area, male version is also in the works. Again, I'm so sorry assless caps will be the first mod ever made for this game >,> )

Deepscanner

The art demo is stellar! Also, I had my Vive plugged in when I ran the demo and my Vive somehow activated there wasn't anything that it displayed or anything, but made me wonder if there would eventually be another Art Preview in the future that would let us check things out from inside VR.

Kaiju Slayer

The art demo is stellar! Also, I had my Vive plugged in when I ran the demo and my Vive somehow activated there wasn't anything that it displayed or anything, but made me wonder if there would eventually be another Art Preview in the future that would let us check things out from inside VR.

Kaiju Slayer

So the most important thing here is that the team is focused on the core gameplay for now. They want to get the base game perfect before they delve into the rest.

Initially, for release, the focus will be on thumping, base building and invasions. Down the line, once the game is successful, they plan to add community elements, such as guilds, missions and other dynamic events. The frills and such (mini-games and activities) will likely be much farther down the line, once the core game is fully up and running.

Kaiju Slayer

So much awesomeness, cant wait so see the characters with proper animations!
Great work guys

(I'm so incredibly sorry, but someone was bound to make a mod for this at some point anyways... so why dont we just get it over with already. Gotta polish it up a bit and remove the chroma from the skin area, male version is also in the works. Again, I'm so sorry assless caps will be the first mod ever made for this game >,> )

Deepscanner

Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
You got the chat happenimg over and over again at the same time, every time, with the same ppl only able to win everything from this.
We will be raffling off a $1500 Ark Liege backer pack along with several other packs, including rare M3 packs with the Bike.
Give everyone else a chance. But you don't want to wake up at 4 am or midday on a weekday, which is what time you run this for some/most of us.

i dont think i want to wake up that early either but there is hope if we had an early bird volunteer who would do this hmm this person perhaps would have more than 3+ alarm clocks that each one is further away so it is tough to stop which would lead to the computer!

My suggestion would be to have a karaoke contest and top 3 win a voice pack this can be recorded and put on the forum if they miss the main karaoke contest in discord!

D-Gater

Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
You got the chat happenimg over and over again at the same time, every time, with the same ppl only able to win everything from this.
We will be raffling off a $1500 Ark Liege backer pack along with several other packs, including rare M3 packs with the Bike.
Give everyone else a chance. But you don't want to wake up at 4 am or midday on a weekday, which is what time you run this for some/most of us.

This is a good question.@Ronyn : would you consider to plan a CC in the future that starts somewhere between 08:00PST and 14:00PST? These would be 17:00CEST and 23:00CEST respectively.

With a start at 16:00PST (01:00CEST) on a weekday only a few of us in Europe can make it, but we are so into these events as the rest of the community, I assume. And yes, we would like to have a chance to ask and win too.

If it is not possible from your side, I can accept it too, but in that case we do not have to ask it again and again.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. One thing to note is that the suits are not the final ones, founder suits will get tweaks and there is concept art for the alt female.I actually started making some mockups in Zbrush. They will be more colorful and customizable in the future.

(Note that this is just a rough test sculpt and might change in the future or not be used at all, but it should give you an idea)

We're still playing around with many things like surface shaders so stuff will change look all the time until we achieve a nice balance. Kaiju are also planned to be colorful but we haven't gotten to that yet.

The one thing we should really look into are the deformations on the meshes you posted. They do look really weird some times. Dunno if it's the rigging, animation or IK in the case of the feet.

Thanks to everybody for their feedback, we're a tiny team working part time so we will miss many things while rushing to get things done. You've all posted a lot of stuff i didn't even notice while working on them

NOTE: To clarify, M3 backer suits may get tweaked as far as surface shader and color balance goes, newcomer suits will be similar to what's shown in the pic.